National Defense Authorization Act Would Increase Funds To Fight HackersThe bill is expected to pass in coming days.

The bill is expected to pass in coming days.

 In a bill barreling towards passing both houses of Congress before the Christmas break, lawmakers are earmarking millions to make life more difficult for hackers in American cyberspace. The new National Defense Authorization Act is said to provide millions for maintaining the Department of Defense’s Cyber Command, and for research and development programs to help keep hackers at bay.

This is reportedly just the latest batch of money that would go towards cybersecurity--but because some of the funding is classified, it is unclear exactly how much the U.S. spends every year on that type of security.
While the technology world is said to mostly welcome the funding, the bill hasn't pleased everyone. Companies with defense contracts are peeved by a requirement that they report to the government if their systems are vulnerable to hackers, a requirement similar to one that was hotly contested by technology companies when it was introduced earlier this year in the 2012 cyber security act.

Will Samsung top Apple by withholding revolutionary tech?

Samsung leads the way in the technology that will drive the next big transformation in mobile devices. Could it withhold the innovation from Apple?

Samsung is drawing closer and closer to the technology that will transform the future of smartphones and tablets. The company will show off its progress in a couple of weeks at CES 2013 when it demos a 5.5-inch flexible display with a 1,280x720-pixel resolution and a 267-pixel density (an upgrade to the one pictured above from CES 2011).
While these displays are still at least a couple of years away from being used in mainstream products, they represent the next big innovation in mobile devices. They will enable much thinner, more power-efficient smartphones and tablets, and a lot more flexibility (pun intended) in product designs and form factors.
The big question is whether Samsung will share this innovation with Apple.

As you know, Apple and Samsung are still embroiled in an epic legal battle over whether Samsung has illegally mimicked Apple devices and infringed on Apple patents with its Galaxy family of smartphones and tablets.
Since Samsung is also the maker of lots of mobile-hardware components, Apple had been one of its best customers. And from Apple's point of view, Samsung was one of its most important partners for the iPhone, i Pad, and iPod lines.
However, the legal cold war between the two companies has inevitably altered the relationship. Apple has been methodically moving business away from Samsung. While some of this has been guised in the wisdom of diversifying its supply chain, it's impossible not to suspect this as retribution for Samsung's perceived improprieties.
Apple has significantly reduced its reliance on Samsung for memory chips. It is reportedly doing everything in its power to stop using Samsung to build the processors for its mobile devices. And it has moved much of its display business from Samsung to rival LG -- though it had to reportedly go back to Samsung and use it to make the Retina display for the iPad 3 because neither LG nor Sharp could meet Apple's next-generation display requirements.
Overall, the lost Apple business clearly hasn't hurt Samsung too badly. It has likely used the extra capacity to supply its own Samsung Mobile business, which saw the Galaxy S3 smartphone overtake the iPhone in 2012 as the most widely sold mobile device on the planet. The Galaxy Note has been a bigger seller as well.

Meanwhile, both Apple and Samsung continued to gobble up most of the profits in the mobile device market in 2012. As they go their separate ways, both companies are doing fine. The two will almost certainly continue to dominate the mobile market in 2013, as they introduce incremental improvements to their market-leading devices.
However, it's when we get to the next big leap forward that the divergence between Apple and Samsung could really matter.
The kind of flexible OLED displays that Samsung is showing off at CES in January are going to change the game. Because they are bendable, less breakable, lighter, thinner, and more energy-efficient, they will unleash a wave a new designs in mobile devices -- lots of things that haven't even been imagined yet, as well as designs that weren't possible until the right technologies and materials were available.
Samsung is far and away the leader in this category. According to its own executives, Samsung produces over 90 percent of the OLEDs currently sold. And it's the only company publicly showing off these types of bendable OLEDs on a large scale -- and it's been doing it for more than two years.
Other companies, like Philips, Sony, and Nokia, have talked up this concept, but none of them are as close to bringing it to the real world as Samsung is.
So, the natural question is where this would leave Apple if Samsung does end up as the clear winner in the OLED race. Would Samsung withhold the technology from its bitter rival and reserve flexible displays only for its own Samsung-branded devices?
The division that makes Samsung displays and the one that makes Samsung smartphones and tablets are two separate businesses within Samsung and each has its own profit-and-loss statements to optimize. So, it's doubtful Samsung would keep the display technology to itself -- at least not indefinitely.

But, since Samsung and Apple have such a fierce rivalry in the mobile market and now have such bad blood between them because of their legal squabbles, it's not hard to imagine Samsung giving its own devices the exclusive first implementation of flexible OLED displays.
It will eventually sell them to Apple and other device makers to make their own designs. But, since this technology represents such game-changing, corner-turning opportunity, the rest of Samsung's competitors will be a step behind and could inevitably be viewed as copycats.
What a turning of the tables that could be.
Apple certainly won't let this pass without a fight. Don't be surprised if Apple makes some quiet acquisitions to bring more display technology and expertise in-house. But, it may already be too late. Samsung could have its earliest flexible OLEDs to market before the end of 2013.

Steve Jobs' high-tech yacht impounded over bill dispute

Venus, the minimalist high-tech yacht commissioned by the late Apple founder Steve Jobs, has become embroiled in a row over a disputed bill. 

 

 French designer Philippe Starck claims Mr Jobs' heirs still owe him 3m euros of a 9m euro fee for the project, according to Dutch paper Het Financieele Dagblad.

Mr Starck called in the debt collectors and had the yacht impounded,
The Port of Amsterdam confirmed that the boat is not allowed to leave.
Jeroen Ranzijn, spokesman for the Port of Amsterdam told the BBC: "The boat is brand new but there is a 3m euro claim on it. The parties will have to fight it out."
Roelant Klaassen, a lawyer representing Mr Starck's company, Ubik, told the Reuters news agency that the boat would remain in port pending payment by lawyers representing Mr Jobs' estate.
"These guys trusted each other, so there wasn't a very detailed contract," he said.
Mr Starck was unavailable for comment.
Gerard Moussault, the lawyer representing the owners of the Venus told the BBC: "I cannot comment at all on this, sorry."
The sleek, 260ft-long (80m) aluminium super-yacht cost 105m euros ($138m; £85m) and was launched in October, at Aalsmeer, The Netherlands.
Mr Starck is known for his striking designs for the Alessi company, including an aluminium lemon squeezer that is shaped like a spaceship.

.

He collaborated with Steve Jobs for five years on the project, describing the boat as "showing the elegance of intelligence."
The vessel is minimalist in style and is named after the Roman goddess of love and its windows measure 3m (10 feet) in height.
Mr Starck has said that Venus "looks strange for a boat" but said its shape comes from design ideas he shared with Mr Jobs.
Mr Jobs died of pancreatic cancer in 2011 and never saw his boat go to sea.

Your Child's Cellphone; a Privilege or a Lifeline

Rebecca Levey is a co-founder of Kidzvuz.com, a video review site by and for tweens. She writes about technology and education at Beccarama and is a White House Champion of Change for Education. Follow her at @ Beccarama.
Despite Mayor Bloomberg’s ban on cellphones in NYC Public Schools, my 10 year-old daughters carry a cellphone to school every day. Like hundreds of thousands of other NYC students, they keep them in their backpacks turned off during the school day, and then activate them after school so they can text and call me when they arrive at their various after school activities. It’s an expectation every parent has at this point – the ability to get in touch with their child no matter where they are.
After the Sandy Hook school tragedy I began to think about how the various communication procedures in place at NYC public schools would work in an emergency situation. You’d think that after 9/11 all of this would be worked out, but 13 years ago when these plans were devised, cellphones were not common in schools, and smartphone didn't even exist. And yet, we are still operating as if cellphones and tablets are privileges, and not tools for aiding and helping in these types of situations. System wide emergency alerts are standard, but if all cellphones are shut off, or stored of campus, they are useless.

If my daughters were in an emergency situation I would want to know they had their cellphone for communication. If children were moved to a different location it would obviously be much faster for them to be able to contact their parent themselves, rather than rely on an administrator or teacher to go through a class list – if they even have access to that list where they are.
The first thing I did was put all family contact info on my daughters’ phones. For children with allergies and other medical issues, having that information accessible on a smartphone could make everything easier, and safer. We saw during Superstorm Sandy what happened when elderly people had to be evacuated, but their physical charts couldn't move with them. In this day and age that seems both unacceptable and very easy to fix.

As a parent I admit, I want to know that I can reach my child easily and not have to jump through hoops to do it – or wait for my phone to
ring. I also want to know that they will have all the info they need, or that a first responder would need to help them, right on their person if possible. And in a worse case scenario like a school shooting, I want to know they can send a text message to officials or to me, to alert them of danger or their hiding location.
I know cellphones can be a distraction, or worse a tool for cheating, but we need to have a real discussion about how these computers in the palm of our kids' hands should also be a part of any meaningful and effective emergency plan.
Does your child have a cellphone? Does your school and family have an emergency plan? Let us know how you think technology and
cellphones could help in an emergency.

Morgan Stanley Case Exposes Facebook to Similar Challenges

the world’s largest social-networking company, could be exposed to legal challenges surrounding its initial public offering similar to those faced by Morgan Stanley, according to legal experts.

In the first regulatory claims to flow from the May 17 IPO Massachusetts officials said on Dec. 17 that they fined Morgan Stanley $5 million for letting its investment bankers provide research analysts specific revenue information that was not disclosed by Faceboook to the general public. That broke a decade-old rule enacted after the dot-com crash to block bankers from influencing analysts, Massachusetts said.

 The settlement includes for the first time details of the closed-door conversations between Morgan Stanley and Facebook ahead of the IPO, including testimony from Michael Grimes, who led the deal for the bank. According to the consent order, Grimes wrote a script for Facebook’s then-treasurer to read to analysts that detailed Facebook’s lowered revenue estimates.
Grimes “did everything but make the phone calls himself,” the regulator said in a statement. Grimes was identified in the settlement only as a “senior investment banker,” though it provided biographical details that match his.
The revelation that Facebook gave specific estimates to bank analysts and not to the public revives questions about whether the company was sufficiently forthcoming ahead of the IPO, said Stephen Diamond, an associate professoor at Santa Clara University School of Law.

 

‘Denied Access’

“By providing that information to just a subset of potential investors, in essence they have denied other investors access to material information,” Diamond said. The Securities and Exchange Commission “should have pushed much harder to find out whether there was quantifiable data available or not,” he added.
Facebook has not been accused by regulators of wrongdoing. Michael Buckley, a spokesman for the Menlo Park, California- based company, declined to comment, as did John Nester, a spokesman for the SEC. New York-based Morgan Stanley did not admit or deny the Massachusetts claims in settling.
The settlement offers fresh insight into a widely anticipated IPO that turned into a debacle for the company and Morgan Stanley. Facebook shares have tumbled 27 percent since they started trading for $38 on May 18, to $27.71 as of the close yesterday. The company capitalized on its popularity among consumers by raising the price and number of shares sold to retail investors, who weren’t privy to the private conversations or revenue estimates.

 

Class Action

William Galvin, the Secretary of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, said he didn’t have the authority to determine whether Facebook executives acted improperly.
“The broader issue is the fairness of the marketplace for investors,” Galvin said in an interview this week.
The details emerging from the consent order may also add ammunition to dozens of class actions, which a judge ordered to be consolidated earlier this month. The testimony disclosed by Massachusetts could be used by prosecutors attempting to make a case that Facebook and Morgan Stanley misled investors, said Erik Gordon, a clinical assistant professor at the University of Michigan’s Stephen M. Ross School of Business.
“The real liability for Facebook and Morgan Stanley is yet to come,” said Gordon.
If Facebook omitted material facts in its prospectus, known as an S-1, it could be found in violation of Section 11 or Section 12 of the Securities act of 1933, Diamond said.

 

‘Scariest Thing’

While it told potential investors that mobile usage could adversely affect revenue, the revelation that it gave a select group of analysts specific numbers on how that trend would affect sales over the full year could be considered a material omission, he said.
A violation of Section 11 could result in a fine or injunctive relief, or it could force the company to return proceeds of its IPO to shareholders, Diamond said.
“A material misstatement or omission in an S-1 is the scariest thing in the world,” Gordon said. “It’s going to hinge on whether the disclosures made in the S-1 were sufficient to give reasonable investors as accurate a view as reasonably possible.”
One of the earliest signs that Facebook’s growth wouldn’t reach the rosiest projections surfaced on May 7, the day the roadshow began, according to testimony cited in the settlement. That evening, Facebook Chief Financial Officer David Ebersman informed Grimes that Facebook’s second-quarter revenue would likely be lower than previously estimated

.

Less Confident

Ebersman had told analysts at an April 16 briefing at Facebook’s headquarters that sales would be $1.1 billion to $1.2 billion.
Now, Ebersman was telling Grimes that he was less confident about those numbers because user growth on mobile devices was outpacing advertising gains. Ebersman also said it was unlikely that Facebook would reach $5 billion in sales for the year, as he’d told analysts.
Grimes relayed that information to a Morgan Stanley capital markets banker, according to Massachusetts.
The next day, May 8, as the roadshow moved to New York to Boston and Baltimore, Facebook was predicting quarterly sales at the low end of its $1.1 billion to $1.2 billion range and sales 3 percent to 3.5 percent below the full-year estimate.
Grimes said in testimony that he advised Ebersman to update analysts on the numbers. To avoid the appearance of incomplete disclosure, he recommended updating the prospectus again to show investors the trend.

 

Treasurer Calls

At 8:10 p.m. that evening, Facebook’s management held a conference call with Grimes, capital markets bankers and counsel from Facebook and Morgan Stanley. Grimes testified that he was with the treasurer on the call. Facebook, with input from Morgan Stanley, decided to update the filing.
On May 9, as the roadshow moved to Philadelphia, Ebersman informed Facebook’s board by e-mail that the prospectus was being refiled. He also said the company was forecasting second- quarter revenue of $1.14 billion, while analysts were predicting $1.18 billion.
Grimes and Facebook’s then-treasurer, Cipora Herman, stayed at a Philadelphia hotel that evening to make calls to analysts. In preparation, they rehearsed the calls, with Grimes playing the role of the analyst.
After the S-1 was filed, Herman would call an analyst every fifteen minutes and read the script, which said that the social network’s second-quarter sales would be at the lower end of the $1.1 billion to $1.2 billion range.

 

Hall Sitting

Grimes said that while the analyst calls were being made, he was “far down the hall” so he wouldn’t hear anything.
“I took extra precaution to do that, and sat on the floor,” he testified.
The first call was to Morgan Stanley, followed by JPMorgan Chase and Co. (JPM) ,Goldman Sachs Group), and Citigroup Inc. Seven additional calls were made by 8:30 p.m. Grimes and the treasurer then joined the roadshow team in New York. On May 10 and May 15, the treasurer made calls to the remaining eight analysts.
Under the 2003 consent decree, Morgan Stanley had pledged to stop investment bankers from influencing analysts.
Galvin, citing the script and Grimes’ involvement, faulted Morgan Stanley for dishonesty, ethics violations and failing to supervise employees.
When asked later in testimony whether the treasurer had a script, Grimes said he didn’t remember. Yet, Facebook provided the Massachusetts securities division with a script that was handwritten by Grimes.

 

Low End

“You can decide what you want to do with your estimates,” he wrote. “Our long term conviction is unchanged, but in the near term we see these trends continuing, hence our being at the low end of the” $1.1 billion to $1.2 billion range, the script said.
Facebook filed its sixth amended prospectus at 5:03 p.m., and within minutes the treasurer called bankers at Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan, with Grimes in the room.
No revenue projection numbers were provided in the May 9 filing, and the company only discussed the trend for the second quarter, not the rest of the year.
After the calls, all three analysts from the lead banks reduced their estimates to the lower end of the $1.1 billion to $1.2 billion range. Morgan Stanley’s analyst lowered his to $1.11 billion from $1.18 billion.
The treasurer added to the script that the trends would remain over the next six to nine months, resulting in sales for the year of 3 percent to 3.5 percent below the $5 billion target.

Estimates Cut

Morgan Stanley’s analyst lowered his estimate by 3 percent to $4.85 billion from $5 billion.
Despite these lowered estimates, on May 15 the price range for the IPO was increased and the next day the number of shares in the offering was bolstered. On May 17, the pricing committee decided to offer shares at $38 a piece, the high end of the increased range.
Herman, who held finance roles at Facebook for five years, left the company in October to take a job as CFO of the San Francisco 49ers football team. Prior to joining Facebook, she was treasurer at Yahoo! Inc.
Bob Lange, a spoksman for the the San Francisco 49ers, declined to make Herman available for comment.
Professor Diamond said the SEC could have been more vigilant as it scrutinized Facebook’s IPO prospectus.

SEC’s Questions

The SEC had asked Facebook for more disclosure about the impact of mobile users on revenue during a two-and-a-half-month volley of messages, which were published after the IPO on the agency’s website. While it succeeded in getting Facebook to reveal more details about its business, it did not ask the company to estimate how mobile usage may affect its forecast for lower revenue in 2012, the messages show.
“The SEC bears some responsibility here, too,” Diamond said. “That’s a question I think Congress ought to ask. Why didn’t the SEC wake up and smell that something was going on here?”

Amazon: TV is about to get way more interesting

With the original programming strategies off all the major Internet video-streaming companies now in place, the TV business is about to change drastically.

When Amazon announced the creation of Amazon Studios and its plans to create orignal TV programming in May, it was widely described as a "crowdsourcing" project, giving ordinary people a chance to become TV producers. But of the six pilot shows the company has greenlghted, five come from producers either with impressive television resumes, or who are famous for something else.

 

 Just one show, a sitcom, was written by unknowns. The others include TV veterans from shows like 30 Rock, The Daily Show, and Big Bang Theory, as well Gary Trudeau, author of the Doonesbury comic strip, and the people at the satirical newspaper The Onion.
The roster of pilots sets up a battle royale involving Amazon and other Internet-video outfits and the TV networks. Nearly all major Internet-based companies have high-quality (or at least, potentially widely popular) programming in the works. They'll be battling the networks and the cable companies as much as with each other. The TV business is about to get even more interesting than it already was.

By largely abandoning the "crowdsourcing" of production, Amazon is acknowledging that its competitors -- Netflix, Hulu, and to some degree YouTube (which is focusing mainly on niche programming mainly comprising short videos) -- are working like big-time TV producers rather than Internet startups. Netflix is producing "premium" programming that supposedly would fit in well on HBO or maybe AMC. Hulu's budget for its original programming is a stunning $500 million a year.
Hulu's programming is the most network-TV-like of the bunch, which is not surprising as it is owned by several traditional TV networks. Its shows include a documentary series hosted by Morgan Spurlock of Super Size Me fame, a travel show hosted by director Richard Linklater, director of Dazed and Confused, and a scripted comedy. Like network TV, the shows will be released weekly. On Netflix, by contrast, whole series will be made available all at once -- a strategy that's designed to attract high-level talent.

Competing with such fare would be highly risky if Amazon were to stick hard to the plan to solicit scripts from the general public. The "crowdsourcing" element, however, will stay in place in one respect: the pilots will all be streamed free of charge, and the viewing public will be given a chance to weigh in. The shows that are chosen to become series will be made available to subscribers to Amazon Prime, which already offers access to Amazon's film and television library. (Amazon's Prime service is increasingly the nexux of all its consumer-oriented services and hardware businesses.)
There is a big risk element for all the Internet-TV producers. It's not yet known whether they will be able to attract anything approaching the kinds of ratings TV networks enjoy, and hence grow to be truly competitive. But they also have little choice: as their libraries of second- and third-run moves and TV shows grow increasingly similar to each other, they risk becoming commodities. They have to shell out one way or another: either by paying premiums for exclusive distribution contracts with studios, or by creating their own programming. By doing the latter, they are at least more in control of their own destinies. And by hiring top talent, they are clearly formidable competitors to the traditional TV business.

Google Launches New Experimental Search Features For Tracking Your Online Purchases, Reservations & Events From Gmail

Google has long been running a number of experimental Search and Gmail field trails anybody can signup for and today it’s launching a few nifty new search features for searching your Gmail inbox from Google.com on the desktop and your iOS or Android phone. Previously, Google already let you find you flights by using the [my flights] search operator, but now you can also use queries like [my purchases] to find your latest Amazon acquisitions and track they packages they are coming in.



In addition, you can now search for various reservations through new search parameters like [my hotel reservation] or [my restaurant reservations] to bring up your travel plans and OpenTable bookings. In addition, you can also use [my events] to, as Google says, “see information from Ticketmaster or Eventbrite about your upcoming concert, sports game or other event.”
It’s worth noting that Google already uses some of this information, including your hotel and flight reservations, in its Google now product on Android 4.0 and higher so it can alert you of flight delays and when you need to check out of your hotel. Today’s update brings a bit more Google Now to the web.




These new features – just like the field trial – are only available for users with @gmail.com addresses in the U.S. and in English for now. Google Apps accounts can’t currently sign up for the trial.
Interestingly, Google is actually a bit late to the game here. Microsoft’s Hotmail introduced what it called Quick views in 2010. Quick Views is actually a bit easier to use than Gmail’s search operators, as they are highlighted in the sidebar of what is now Outlook.com and just take a click to select. Unlike Google’s implementation, though, Microsoft’s email service can’t be used to easily retrieve event updates and restaurant reservations.

Microsoft offers patches to WebKit to aid touch compatibility

Google, Mozilla, and Opera are on-board. Apple? Not so much.

In a move that has raised eyebrows, Microsoft has submitted a patch to the WebKit project to extend the open source rendering engine with a prototype implementation of the Pointer Events specification that the company is also working on together with Google, Mozilla, and Opera. WebKit is the rendering engine used in Apple's Safari and Google's Chrome browsers, making Microsoft's work a contribution to products that are in direct competition to its own.
The patch came from Microsoft Open Technologies, a subsidiary company that Microsoft created in April to serve as a home for all of Microsoft's work and relationships with open source projects and development of open standards.
Pointer Events is a draft specification that provides a unified event model for multi-touch, pen, and mouse input. It's the World Wide Web Consortium's (W3C) second attempt at a standard for handling touch input. The first specification, Touch Events, has been essentially abandoned. Touch Events were modeled on the proprietary touch API that Apple added to Safari for the iPhone. However, the specification was written without Apple's involvement, and the Cupertino company refuses to commit to disclosure and royalty-free licensing of any patented technology that might cover the Touch Events spec.
This blocked further development of Touch Events, and led to Microsoft proposing the new Pointer Events spec. Microsoft, unlike Apple, is participating in W3C's standardization process and has made the intellectual property commitments that W3C demands. Representatives from Google, Firefox developer Mozilla, and Opera, along with Nokia, Zynga, jQuery, and the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, are all working with Microsoft to refine and improve Pointer Events. As with Touch Events, Apple is deciding not to get involved.
The contribution comes not long after Redmond encouraged Web developers to remember Internet Explorer and not assume that WebKit is the only rendering engine that's used on the mobile, touch-oriented Web. At the moment, touch-driven Web content is leaving Internet Explorer 10 (and hence Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8) behind, because it is being written for WebKit and Touch Events, and WebKit and Touch Events alone.
Google developers expressed interest in adding Pointer Events support to WebKit in November citing both compatibility with Internet Explorer, and the IP problems with Touch Events as reasons to do so. However, the response from one of Apple's WebKit developers was negative; the developer claimed that the Pointer Events spec had (unspecified) problems and that there was no point in supporting Pointer Events until real Web content used it. Another Google developer invited the Apple to join pointer events working group to help improve the specification and address those unspecified problems, but thus far Apple appears to be unwilling to participate.
With Google's WebKit developers open to the use of Pointer Events, it's likely that WebKit will, at some point, gain support for the spec. Microsoft's contribution could well help speed this process along Firefox and Opera are likely to implement the spec too, given their involvement with the standard. Should this happen, the ball will be squarely in Apple's court: it can either support actively-developed, royalty-free, interoperable Web standards, or it can stick with Touch Events and ignore the work being done.

Could smart gun technology make us safer?

It might, but funding for the technology has all but dried up

 In the latest James Bond film, Skyfall, smart gun technology prevents a bad guy from using Bond's own Walther PPK to shoot him. Far fetched? Not at all.

And, in the wake of the mass shooting at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. last week, interest in gun safety is rising anew after developments in smart gun technology stalled out for a lack of interest and investors.
President Barack Obama on Wednesday announced a gun violence task force to come up with solutions to the problem of gun violence and is pressuring Congress to reinstate an assault weapons ban, which expired in 2004. He also wants stricter background checks and a limit on high-capacity gun magazines.
One area the president hasn't mentioned, but that is likely to come up, involves smart gun technology. Under development for more than a dozen years, it could use a person's unique grip, fingerprints or an RFID chip to limit weapon use only to someone authorized to fire the gun.
In fact, a half dozen campus police at the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) already carry smart guns that prevent unauthorized use by disabling the trigger mechanism.
Smart gun technology proponents are quick to point out their systems would not necessarily have prevented the murder of the 20 children and six Sandy Hook Elementary staff by Adam Lanza on Dec. 14. "It is important to understand that these criminal acts have been perpetrated by authorized users with legally purchased firearms, and nothing in our technology would have stopped these killings," said Donald H. Sebastian, NJIT's senior vice president for research and development.
Sabastian pointed to news reports that Lanza's mother was a gun enthusiast who owned several weapons and took her son shooting with her, which would mean he would have likely had access and have been allowed to use the weapons. Had he not been authorized to use the guns, smart technology might at least deterred him.
Biometric authentication algorithm technology is about securing weapons in the home or workplace against unauthorized use.

 

Grip recognition

NJIT is a leading, and early, developer of smart gun technology. For more than a dozen years, it has been testing a Dynamic Grip Recognition Technology that Sebastian claims is 99% effective in preventing unauthorized use of a gun.
Dynamic Grip Recognition uses 32 sensors in the gun's grip, which, like voice recognition technology, can be trained to recognize a particular person's grip pattern profile and discriminate between authorized and unauthorized users.
The effort began with discussions on how to protect law enforcement officials who may have their guns taken in a struggle with a suspect.
"That led to the introduction of RFID technology and that goes back to the early 1990s," Sabastian said. "That's a different set of constraints than the gun sitting in the sock drawer, locked and loaded in case something goes bump in the night -- protecting your kids from having access to that.
"That's what led to the selection of biometrics and use of grip recognition technology," he said. "It works while you're pulling the trigger. It's not like you put a thumb print on the bottom to turn it on, and for some period of time it's active and ready to go for some period of time whether you have custody or not."
Development has been slow, however, because funding has lagged, with little interest so far from venture capitalists. In fact, current prototypes are based on 10-year-old microprocessors because of a lack of funds, Sebastian said.
 
"We have found no interest on the part of gun manufacturers in commercializing any aspect of user-authenticating weapons," Sebastian said.

 

Sensors in an older generation of the current handgun once looked like this. Newer generations of the handgun will have sleeker, smaller sensors and microchips at least half the size of the ones in this photograph (Image: New Jersey Institute of Technology)

For Dynamic Grip Recognition to work, the gun's processor is first placed in learning mode. Then, the user must shoot about 50 rounds to train the weapon to recognize a specific grip. (Multiple users can be saved in the system's memory.)
The Dynamic Grip Recognition software algorithms can also be tuned to be more or less sensitive. For example, a gun could be tuned to only accept an adult's hand profile or one similar to the owner's, while preventing children from being able to use it, Sebastian said.
"If it's a kid, it will probably never be recognized as an authorized user because the physical geometry will never be a match," he said.
One problem with the current prototypes, which use a Beretta 92F 9mm semi-automatic pistol, is that besides the microprocessor, the battery and I/O interface technology used for programing the gun is a decade old and is too cumbersome for mass-market production. For example, the current battery is a 9-volt and the cable is based on either a USB cable or 25-pin RS232 connector that's years behind current technology. If upgraded, guns could be programmed using smart-phone LTE 5G wireless technology, Sebastian said.

 

A researcher on the smart gun team tests the gun's trigger switch. Beneath his hand sits a digital signal processor box. (Image: New Jersey Institute of Technology)

While NJIT may be using Beretta pistols to test its technology, the Beretta company has not supported the school's efforts, according to Sebastian.
"We're out of money," he said. "We're able to keep things going for another semester or so, but we're looking at private investment and we'll see if the mood is changing. "...That may bring more investors out of the cold."
NJIT's grip recognition is only one smart gun technology among many available. Others include fingerprint recognition though infrared fingerprint readers and the use of RFID radio chips.
While several technologies can be used to recognize fingerprints, such as infrared, optical scanning and pressure sensors that can determine the grooves of a person's fingerprints, Sebastian argues they're too kludgy to use, and not always reliable.
"At best, we found that they were 75% reliable, and that's under laboratory conditions," he said. "And there are all kinds of ways they can be confused and not work: Dry fingers on capacitor systems cause problems; leaving behind the residue of your finger print can cause problems; cold hands; gloves, no gloves. There are a lot of reasons just as a technology that it is flawed.


"Then you get into where do you put it on the gun, so that your finger falls in a natural way. It's very difficult...to find one place that fits for all."

 

RFID technology

The Georgia Institute of Technology has developed RFID smart gun technology for a company called TriggerSmart, an Irish firm that has been granted patents for its weapons' safety devices in the U.S. and 47 other countries. The technology, developed at the school's County Westmeath, Ireland campus, has yet to be integrated by any gun manufacturers.
"They've done a lot of work in the U.S. with trying to get gun manufacturers [interested], but to be honest there's quite a bit of resistance from the gun industry in the U.S. to the technology," said Joe Dowling, general manager at Georgia Tech Ireland.
"They see it as another level of control that they don't want to implement," he continued. "TriggerSmart has been saying, 'Hey, it's not that we don't want you to have a gun, it's just another optional safety feature you may want.' "
Computerworld attempted to contact gun makers Smith & Wesson and Mossberg & Sons, both of which have had smart gun development efforts in the past. Smith & Wesson officials did not return requests for comment. Mossberg declined to comment on the issue.
In 1999, Mossberg subsidiary Advanced Ordnance and electronics design contractor KinTech Manufacturing developed a smart technology using RFID chips that was marketed by iGun technology Corp.. Officials at iGun Technology could not be reached for comment.
TriggerSmart's technology also works with RFID chips through an RFID tag carried by or implanted in the hand of an authorized gun user. The tag sends a high frequency radio signal to a small motor that unlocks the gun's safety mechanism. Unless the RFID tag is within one centimeter of the gun's handle, the weapon's safety will remain in the locked position and it cannot be unlocked until the radio signal is received. A small rechargeable battery that can hold up to a week's worth of power, enables the internal motor.
The distance at which the signal works can be tuned to be several centimeters away from the gun or as close as two millimeters.

The technology used in TriggerSmart's prototype costs about $50, but if it were mass produced that cost would drop significantly, Dowling said. While the technology can be retrofitted to guns, the process requires a pistol grip change as well as the motor install, making it better suited to integration during the manufacturing process.
While the technology was originally developed for police use, it could easily be adapted for civilian or military use.
"We've been talking with the New York Police Department about it," Dowling said. "Up to 40% of instances where an officer is shot, they're shot with their own gun. This technology would obviously solve that problem."

 

Biometrics access control

Not all biometrics technology is focused on integration with weapons. For example, LEID Products LLC has created Biometric Access Control System (BACS) that can be used on gun lockers and storage containers to restrict access to guns and to track when and by whom weapons are used.
LEID Products has also created electronic lockers and rifle racks to secure the weapons. Authorized users whose names and biometric information has been recorded, go to a kiosk and log in by using either hand geometry or fingerprint scans. Users can also be limited to specific weapons, even if they're allowed into a locker with a gun rack.
"For example, if a law enforcement officer hadn't been certified to use a Taser, then he wouldn't be allowed to log in for access," said Georgia Whalen, director of marketing for LEID Products.
Gun-locker access can be controlled locally or remotely by one or more administrators using a PC. "So if an event like what happened at that elementary school occurred, the administrator can touch a computer button at home and release all the equipment to all the officers," Whalen said.


Currently, several government agencies throughout the country have installed or are considering LEID's BACS lockers, including the National Institutes of Health, which developed the technology to develope its armory in 2009. The U.S. National Park Service is also considering installing lockers in different locations at national monuments for emergency use by its police force, Whalen said.
But such systems would likely be too expensive for home use. Just the kiosk and software for BACS retail for about $18,000. One gun rack is about $8,000, Whalen said.

 

Political and social climate

Biometrics technology proponents readily admit that their systems can be thwarted, and no single technology or piece of legislation will completely solve the gun safety problem. There are also logistical issues. For example, what if an officer forgets his RFID tag and can't operate his weapon?
"Even if you have smart guns, people can find ways if they are competent enough to get around the technologies," Georgia Tech's Dowling said. "The question as to whether it prevents these mass shootings or not is still open. But it's one more barrier and, in my mind, it's about statistics and probability. If it reduces the probability by a certain percentage, then it's worth it."
Yet, Dowling admits the political and even social climate around gun safety has vacillated over the past two decades. During President Clinton's administration in the 1990s, there was intense interest in the development of the technology, he said. Once Clinton left office, support for the technology evaporated.
One problem, proponents say, is perspective. Gun enthusiasts and organizations such as the National Rifle Association may view smart gun technology as gun control instead of gun safety.
Since President Obama took office in 2009, however, there have been several mass shootings. U.S. army psychologist Major Nidal Hasan killed 13 and wounded 42 others at Fort Hood, Texas in 2009; Jared Lee Loughner opened fire in Tuscon, Ariz. in January 2011, killing six people -- including a nine-year-old girl -- and wounding Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.
This year alone, there have been three mass shootings, including James Holmes' rampage in an Colorado movie theater screening of The Dark Knight Rises; Wade Michael Page's shooting of six people in a Sikh temple in Wisconsin; and Lanza's massacre of 27 in Newtown, Conn. last week
With all those shootings, gun safety proponents said attention may be turning back toward technology as a solution.
For example, NJIT has seen some renewed interest from venture capitalists, Sebastian said, though none from the gun manufacturing industry. "There are a lot of things that conspire against that," he said.
"I want to keep emphasizing that this is about gun safety and not about gun control," he said. "When you change the climate of discussion from gun control, you have people who might be more willing to talk about novel approaches to improving and increasing the safety without it becoming poisoned as a stealthy approach to gun control, and therefore, throwing the baby out with the bathwater."

Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet 2 goes on sale, may arrive in January

Lenovo's ThinkPad Tablet2 has been an elusive beast. We heard about pricing in October with promises that it would arrive the same month, but it was held back at the last moment with few progress updates since. Patience, it turns out, is a virtue: the Windows 8 tablet has returned, ready for sale. The promised $649 starting price offers a 64GB WiFi version; spending $30 more adds a pen input and digitizer screen for frequent note-takers, while a $729 version loads Windows 8 Pro for the corporate crowd. No one's likely to put it on their last-minute gift shopping list, though. Lenovo estimates a delivery date of January 7th, which won't be much consolation to recipients short of an IOU.

How Facebook Might Further Annoy Users Next Year

Having already ticked off many users in late 2012 with photo-licensing changes, sharing limitations, and an end to policy voting, Facebook plans to insert video ads into users’ News Feeds in 2013, according to a report.
Facebook plans to unveil 15-second video ads by April within both mobile and desktop news feeds, several Advertising Executives tell Ad Age. The ads will start playing automatically, according to two of the executives, and Facebook has reportedly not decided whether to mute audio from the ads. Ad Age reports that the commercials will even expand beyond the middle web page section that normally contains the news feed, taking over the left and right rails of the page as well.
Facebook declined to comment. Video ads are a dicey topic for the social network. On the one hand, they are a great way for Facebook to goose revenue, at least as far as Wall Street analysts are concerned. But video ads — in particular those that play automatically — are basically guaranteed to annoy users. And user patience with Facebook is already wearing thin. The social network generated huge controversy in this month when it revised the Instagram terms of service to allow advertisers free use of people’s names and photos. Shortly before that, Facebook upset some users by limiting how its photos could be shared on the rival site Twitter. And before that Facebook pissed some people off by ending a system that let people vote on changes to how the site was run. That’s all since late November.

For years now, Facebook has been able to keep growing despite a whole slew of controversies and annoying changes. For all the hubbub in the press and among the digerati, ordinary people have by and large stuck by the big blue juggernaut. The question now is how much more they can take.

How Social Media, Mobile Are Playing a Bigger Part in Healthcare

Google search has become part of our medical check-up these days. If you browse WebMD, Google or various online forums for answers before a doctor visit, you're not alone.
It's tempting to see if we can find an answer to our health questions in an instant when a world of information is at our fingertips, rather than leaving work or home. Flawed and inaccurate as some of that information may be, there are also many useful sites and forums with advice from actual doctors. 

A study compiled by Demi & Cooper Advertising and DC Interactive Group shows that more than 90% of people ages 18-24 said they would trust health information they found on social media channels. One in two adults use their smartphone to look-up health information. Patients are also taking to the Interwebs to talk about the care they received: 44% of people said they would share positive or negative experiences of a hospital or medical facility, and 42% said they wouldn't hesitate to post comments about a doctor, nurse or healthcare provider on social media.
More than a quarter of hospitals have a social media presence. And 60% of doctors say social media improves the quality of care.
There's no doubt hospitals and doctors benefit from social media -- at least when patients leave them good reviews and talk about their positive experiences.
But since doctors are required to keep healthcare information private, in accordance with HIPAA laws, it's essential that they are aware of boundaries while using social media, says Ryan Greysen, assistant clinical professor in the department of medicine at University of California, San Francisco.
Greysen tells Mashable doctors should be careful with what information they give to patients on social networks. The security of such sites is important to consider since medical advice and information should be completely private.
"The great thing with social media is it can be shared, but that's the downside [for health information]," he says. "Healthcare is very new in this area."
Greysen says he suspects it will only be a couple years until more secure technologies for doctor and patient sharing will be available.

Doctors commenting on public forums offering medical advice can present liability issues, too. However, "secured patient portals are a great way to leverage mobile technology to promote healthy behavior." Healthcare providers often offer these through their websites.
Sometimes consulting a forum for a already diagnosed condition can be reliable, especially if a doctor is involved in monitoring it. But there are no studies that show patients with access to medical forums have better care than those who don't, says Greysen.
Plus, the web may not always be the best place to go for a diagnosis.
"A lot of medical conditions require much more detail and dialogue between the patient and physician," he said. "In many cases it [a website] doesn't substitute for an in-person visit."
"We haven't turned the corner to where we can say social media have changed people's outcomes, but there are some really interesting projects out there that are changing that," he says. "I think we're within a couple years of having secure sites and capturing more details about patient circumstance."
Check out the infographic below and tell us, does your healthcare provider offer useful online tools to connect with your doctor?

Instagram backtracks after user privacy revolt

Faced with a loud and angry backlash from some of its most active users, photo-sharing app Instagram backtracked Tuesday on new language that appeared to give the company ownership of their images.

"The language we proposed ... raised question about whether your photos can be part of an advertisement," Instagram co-founder Kevin Systromwrote in a Blogpost. "We do not have plans for anything like this and because of that we're going to remove the language that raised the question."

An update Monday to Instgram's terms of services had stated that data collected through the app can be shared with Facebook. That's not a surprising move, considering Facebook paid an estimated $1 billion for the photo-sharing service earlier this year.

But the language that upsets some app more than 100 million users said that "a business or other entity may pay" Instagram for the use of user images and may do so "without any compensation to you."

That didn't sit well with some -- including Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's wedding photographer.

 "Pro or not if a company wants to use your photos for advertising they need to TELL you and PAY you," Nha Kalina wrote today on Twitter.

Kalina stopped short of vowing to quit Instagram, saying he hopes that language will be deleted. The proposed changes are set to go into effect January 16.

Others weren't being so patient.

A popular Twitter feed associated with the hacker collective Anonymous was urging its more than 780,000 followers to dump the app Tuesday morning.

"Only way to opt out of @instagram selling your photos is deleting your account," wrote the person who runs the account. "Sounds good to us. #BoycottInstagram".

The feed posted image after image of screen shots from followers who had done just that. It claimed it was receiving thousands of such images -- too many to count.

Systrom wrote that the intent of the new terms was "to communicate that we'd like to experiment with innovative advertising that feels appropriate on Instagram."

"Instead it was interpreted by many that we were going to sell your photos to others without any compensation," he wrote. "This is not true and it is our mistake that this language is confusing. To be clear: it is not our intention to sell your photos. We are working on updated language in the terms to make sure this is clear."

The new terms appeared to significantly broaden what Instagram can do with users' content. Currently they say, "Instagram may place such advertising and promotions on the Instagram Services or on, about, or in conjunction with your Content."

Systrom's post came after a morning when social media and tech blogs lit up with complaints. #BoycottInstagram and #Instagram were top trending topics on Twitter for much of the day.

Wil Wheaton, who parlayed a child-actor stint on "Star Trek: The Next Generation" into becoming one of the Web's earliest star bloggers, wrote that he doesn't use Instagram. But he questions whether other "celebrities to some degree" could be exploited if they do.

"If someone Instagrams a photo of Seth Green walking through an Urban Outfitters, does that mean Urban Outfitters can take that image and use it to create an implied endorsement by Seth?" Wheaton wrote. "What if the picture is taken by a complete stranger? Who gets final say in how the image is used? The subject, the photographer, or Instagram?"

Even CNN's own Anderson Cooper was expressing some concern on the site.

"#Instagram will now be able to use anyone's photos in ads? Without consent?" he wrote on Twitter. "Come on! Is there another photo app people recommend?"

Cooper wasn't the only one considering his options.

"I have my fingers crossed that they, Instagram, will listen to the voice of the community and reverse the new terms of service, but I'm not holding my breath," wrote photojournalist Richard Koci Hernandez, who has more than 163,000 Instagram followers. He shared his thoughts on Instagram, where he was posting blank black squares instead of his usual artful black-and-white images.

"I don't feel like debating the terms of service or being too nostalgic about the old days of Instagram, I feel that it's much better just to take our work and more importantly friendship and conversation to another place that respects our rights and ownership as creators," Hernandez added. "Let's move the party to a new location."

Bloggers also were spotlighting tools like Hipstamatic and Camera Awesome, as well as Twitter's own new photo services that includes Instagram-like filters.

A year and half old Blogpost from photo-sharing site Flickr was also making the rounds. In it, Yahoo, which owns Flickr, uses language, perhaps aimed at Facebook, that says "(w)e feel very strongly that sharing online shouldn't mean giving up rights to your photos."

Systrom said Instagram agrees.

"Instagram users own their content and Instagram does not claim any ownership rights over your photos," he wrote. "Nothing about this has changed. We respect that there are creative artists and hobbyists alike that pour their heart into creating beautiful photos, and we respect that your photos are your photos. Period."

It is, of course, too early to know how many people were fleeing Instagram on Tuesday. But anecdotal evidence suggested a movement was afoot.

Instaport, a tool that lets users export and and download their Instagram images, was reporting overtaxed servers Tuesday morning.

"Our servers are very busy right now, so it may show you some errors," the company wrote to a user on its Twitter feed. "Please try again later or tomorrow."

Google's cloud-based music-matching service has arrived... and it's free

Price isn't the only difference—Google has higher quality files and no "sin tax."

 Google has announced its own music-matching locker service, but unlike Amazon's cloud player and iTunes match, this new service is free. Google play in this new in carnation, first debuted in Europe a month ago and now it has finally come stateside.

Google music beta (as it was then-called) first debuted in 2011—the new service will scan your computer's music collection, then check that against Google's servers and serve you with a stream of those songs. Previously, the service required you to upload each song through its client application.
“Our new music matching feature gets your songs into your online music library on Google Play much faster,” the company wrote Tuesday on its Google+ page. “We’ll scan your collection and quickly rebuild it in the cloud—all for free. And we’ll stream your music back to you at up to 320 kbps.”
Importantly, folks who were hip to Google Music Beta/Google Play back in the day don't have to go through this rigamarole twice.
"If you’re a longtime Google Play Music user, you don’t need to re-upload your files to have them matched," the company now says. "In the next few months, we'll automatically match what we can of your existing library."
This is where the Wall Street Journal identifies a second big difference. Rather than employ Apple’s or Amazon’s strategy—having users pay a “sin tax” for music that may not be 100 percent legally acquired—Google is simply writing “big up-front checks” to the major music labels.
And if this sort of thing matters to you, Apple’s iTunes Match and Amazon’s Cloud Player only offer 256kbps downloads, rather than Google’s 320kbps.
Ars will have a full review of Google Play in the coming wee

Bing Updates Its Image Search Results With Enhanced Photo Viewer, Speed Improvements

Microsoft updated Bing’s image search results pages with larger thumbnails and less white-space earlier this year and today, the company is taking this one step further by also introdcing a ew way to explore imagery on Bing. Instead of loading the actual page with the image after you click on a thumbnail, Bing now brings up a large image viewer that, as the company says, places “the image center stage.”

The image itself does indeed take up most of the screen, with a photo strip of other search results at the bottom and a list of recommended searches in the right sidebar. The actual site the photo comes from has now been relegated to a thumbnail in the bottom right corner. To go the site the photo originated on, users have to click on the site’s thumbnail. While site owners may not love this feature, it is actually a step up from the old system that just featured a link.



 


One nice feature here is that you can use your arrow keys to navigate between the various images on the photo strip. It’s also quite remarkable how fast the experience is. As Microsoft notes, the Bing team rebuilt the viewer “from the ground up focusing on speed improvements so you can see a picture immediately, without wasting time waiting for the page to load.”
The new image search experience also dims the background to make viewing images easier on the eyes and offers a full-screen mode for viewing the most interesting images up close.

Desperate iOS users download Google Maps 10 million times in 2 days

It seems iPhone users missed Google, huh?

More than 10 million iOS users sprinted back into the arms of Google Maps the weekend after the new third-party app was released, according to a Google+ post from Jeff Huber, a senior vice president at the company. Though the number accounts for less than 2.5 percent of iPhones sold worldwide, it’s clear that many iOS users were eager to see the return of the mapping service.
Google hinted that it planned to release its own mapping app after getting forced out of the native suite of apps with Apple’s iOS 6. The reaction to Apple’s own mapping app has been, to put it lightly mixed, and users have been impatient for the return of Google’s app.

 Google Maps was finally released early on Friday. At long last, some holdouts could be talked down from their iOS installs and convinced to upgrade. And while the new Google Map app doesn’t integrate with the OS the way the old one did (and the way Apple’s does), it has already made some customers happy, with an average rating of 4.5 stars over 20,000 evaluations.
According to our own polls, a healthy portion (about a third) of Ars readers will be sticking with Apple's map, and many more found their way to new navigation apps in Google Maps' absence: more than half were happy to stick with Google, wherever it may lead them.

Apple request for Samsung phone ban is denied

A federal judge ruled late Monday that Samsung could continue to sell smartphones that were ruled to have infringed Apple's patents.

The eight Samsung phones involved in the case, including the popular Galaxy S II, will not be taken off store shelves because there is no evidence that customers were specifically seeking out the features that Samsung copied, the judge indicated.
In August, a jury found that Apple should be awarded $1 billion in damages for Samsung copying of the design and software features of the iPhone. But U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh said Monday that Apple had not proved a connection between the patent infringement and a loss of iPhone sales.
"Obviously, this is a serious and surprising set-back for Apple and its legal team," said Michael Kasdan, a partner at Amster Rothstein & Ebenstein. "it is extremely unusual in competitor vs. competitor cases for the patentee not to be granted an injunction. Apple will surely appeal."
Apple had claimed that the harm caused by Samsung was "irreparable," noting that the iPhone had lost market share. Apple also said that future iPhone sales would be fewer in number, and that its ecosystem of devices and software like the iPad, Mac and iTunes were also damaged. Judge Koh wasn't buying it.

"While Apple has presented evidence that design, as a general matter, is important to consumers more broadly, Apple simply has not established a sufficient causal nexus between infringement of its design patents and irreparable harm," Judge Koh wrote in her order. "Though evidence that Samsung attempted to copy certain Apple features may offer some limited support for Apple's theory, it does not establish that those features actually drove consumer demand."
The ruling is a major setback for Apple, which hoped to ban eight of the 21 devices found to have infringed its patents and also add Samsung's latest gadgets to the injunction. That includes the mega-popular Samsung Galaxy S III smartphone, which had outsold Apple's iPhone as recently as September. Many of the devices that Apple wanted taken off store shelves are still on the market, but they are all more than a year old -- ancient by smartphone standards.
In August, a California jury issued what amounted to a worst-case scenario for Samsung. The jury found Samsung had infringed several of its patents, including software features like double-tap zooming and scrolling, as well as design features that included hardware style or icon setup. Judge Koh has not yet ruled on other important post-trial proceedings, including whether all of the $1 billion award should be upheld. She must also decide if Samsung's copying was intentional. In that case, damages could be tripled.

Judge Koh did issue a separate ruling on Monday that denied Samsung's request for a new trial based on its claims of juror misconduct. Samsung had claimed that the jury foreman Velvin Hogan had been prejudiced against the company, because he had been sued by Seagate, his former employer. Samsung became the largest investor in Seagate after selling a division to the hard drive maker in 2011.
"It was always a true uphill battle for Samsung, given the standards for showing that a new trial was warranted," said Kasdan.
Separately, Samsung announced on Tuesday that it was dropping lawsuits against Apple in Europe.
Investors seemed pleased by that development. Shares of Apple, which have plunged more than 26% since hitting an all-time high in September, rose more than 1% in premarket trading Tuesday.

RIM sets BlackBerry 10 event for January 30

Research In Motion sends out invitations to the media for BlackBerry 10's unveiling at a New York City event. What 2013 holds for RIM beyond that remains to be seen.

 Research In Motion has officially announced a BlackBerry 10 event for January 30.

The company today sent out invitations to select media outlets, inviting them to Pier 36 in New York City that day for the global unveiling of BlackBerry 10: "You can see it first." RIM didn't provide any details on the event, but its tagline is, "Re-designed. Re-engineered. Re-invented."
RIM announced last month that it would launch BlackBerry 10 in january 30. The company is expected to unveil a full touch-screen device and another that could resemble its current Bold handset.

 BlackBerry 10 has been plagued by delays that only exacerbated the company's broader issues. RIM's market share has been on the decline, and even in the enterprise -- once a space it dominated -- Android and iOS are making inroads. BlackBerry 10 is believed to be RIM's last, best hope for a turnaround.

 Since that last delay, RIM has been working hard to bring its operating system to the market on time. In October, the company announced that it had started carrier testing, a sure sign that progress was being made. Earlier today, RIM also announced that its BlackBerry 10 Technical Preview program has kicked off, allowing government and enterprise customers the chance to beta test the operating system.
RIM is expected to show off a new BlackBerry 10 feature called "Notebooks" at the January 30 event. The developer documentation describes the feature as a "folder-like object that contains notebook entries." The operating system will also include improved major applications, including e-mail, contacts, and calendars.

HTC Reportedly Drops Plans for Large Windows Phone Device

HTC  has given up on producing a large-screen Windows Phone-based smartphone, Bloomberg reports citing a source familiar with the project.
The reasoning behind this decision lies in Windows Phone 8's maximum allowed screen resolution: 1280x720 pixels. HTC reportedly thinks that this is too low for a smartphone with a screen size larger than 5 inches, as competing Android models have a much larger resolution.
For comparison, HTC-made Verizon Droid DNA (also known as HTC J Butterfly) has a 5-inch screen with a 1920×1080 pixel resolution.
Another reason for the decision could be HTC's dwindling market share. According to comScore's latest report, the company's smartphone market share in the U.S. fell to 6% in October 2012. Struggling to regain its position in the smartphone market, HTC probably wants to focus on devices that offer the most to consumers.
Can 5-inch Windows Phone 8 smartphones, with their maximum allowed resolution of 1280x780, compete with similarly sized Android models? Share your thoughts in the comments.

Google Maps: Is the iPhone version actually better than Android?

Google Maps is good, much better than Apple Maps. We all know that. But in his write-up of the new app, New York Times reviewer David Pogue said that even Google though its new design was superior to the same app on Android.

Maybe that unnamed Google employee was just playing a sales-and-marketing role, talking the app up to generate interest, but it's still a shocking statement.

Product ecosystems are one of the most fiercely competitive areas of tech right now. Companies like Amazon, Google and Microsoft generally keep the best features of their products for themselves and deliver merely adequate iterations for other platforms.
So is the Google Maps app for Apple's iOS really better than Google's baked-in, native version for Android?
It depends on what it's used for. Those who expected the Apple app to be a lesser version of Android's software are wrong -- but those expecting a carbon copy of the Android experience are also sorely mistaken.
The basic, core experience is essentially identical. Maps are the same, as are search results.. Both provide walking directions, public transit routes and voice-guided, turn-by-turn navigation. Street view and 3-D maps are included. There's no critical flaw in either app that makes one significantly better or worse than the other.
But make no mistake: these are different apps.
The Apple iOS version quickly and cleanly delivers the needed navigation data. From the very first screen, the experience is simply more intuitive. Instead of a search button in the bottom corner of the screen, the iOS app has a search bar along the top, instantly guiding people to the most frequently used feature of a maps app.
Next to that is a button taking users to a menu where they can choose among preset locations for home, work and other saved locations. That saves you from repeatedly entering the same addresses. The Android version has this feature, but it's buried in a layer under the app's home screen, obscuring it from the sight of less savvy smartphone users.
And then's the info cards. When a user searches for a point of interest and taps on a pin, the information pops up in a bar at the bottom, instead of as an overlayed box on the map. Tap that box and it moves up, occupying 2/3 of the screen (leaving the last 1/3 for the existing map). You can swipe left and right to move between different search results, and can dig into business info, Zagat ratings and navigation options. When you're finished, you simply swipe down and you're back at the home screen.
It's far cleaner and more intuitive than what the Android version offers.
But that's not to say that the Android app doesn't have its own advantages. Android is all about raw functionality. Offline maps are an exclusive perk, along with the less-essential but still intriguing indoor maps, terrain maps and bicycle-route overlays. And, by virtue of Apple's fickleness, it enjoys the benefits of optimizations that come from being built straight into the operating system: smoother panning and zooming, enhanced functionality while running in the background, and default maps-app status.
There's deep integration with other Google  services, which can't be found in the iOS version. Access to local recommendations, offers, Wikipedia overlays and recently checked-in locales can all be accessed through the Android software.
The distinctions make sense. That Google chose to make any aspect of its product superior on another platform seems nuts until you look at the context in which the two different platforms are used.
Apple's iOS is manically focused on delivering an intuitive user experience, so it got a better user interface (which will probably work its way into the Android version someday). Android prioritized customization and power-user functionality since day one. Anyone who immerses themselves in Google's services -- and therefore wants deep integration with them -- probably has an Android phone.
Releasing an equally high-quality product on a competitor's platform is a smart, insightful move. It's great for consumers, and in the long run, that's great for Google.